


girly

by Prim_the_Amazing



Series: Bingo [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: It takes too long for the girl standing in front of Jester to register as Beau.





	girly

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing the gen prompt bingo bc I'm bad at staying on task. Trope: You're only young twice: Age Regression

It takes too long for the girl standing in front of Jester to register as Beau. She’s standing right where Beau had been only a moment ago, hands on the lid of the now open treasure chest, dissipating purple smoke fading away to reveal her familiar features. Her cheekbones, her chin, her eyes, her skin coloring. Not the right nose, though-- it doesn’t look like it’s ever been broken. And her hair’s all… girly. Not shaven on the sides and back, not up in a bun on her head, all glossy and shiny and long and brushed.

Also, she’s a _girl._ As in, not a woman. Maybe eight or ten years old? Jester didn’t spend time with other kids while growing up, and she’s only really spent time with Kiri since leaving, who was a little bird girl, so. Not exactly the same. 

Jester reaches out and pokes her in the cheek to check and see if this is some kind of illusion maybe, and Beau gasps and reels back, eyes snapping over to her. She’s so _small._

“Who are you!?” Beau demands. Her voice is so _high._

“Are you wearing a _dress?”_ Jester asks, fascinated and incredulous and a little bit delighted.

She is. It isn’t even blue. It’s lavender and maroon, and there’s frills on the edges, and the skirt is big and poofy and unwieldy, and there's a big bow cinched tight around her waist.

Beau’s mouth hangs open for a moment at Jester’s question, brows furrowing and face going all confused like it’s a weird question or something. It’s not! _Beau_ is wearing a _dress._

She’s also a small child, but that first thing is clearly much more urgent and strange.

“Of course I’m wearing a dress,” she says, confusion bleeding into a sort of indignance, like Jester had just asked her why the sky is blue. “I’m a _girl.”_

She says girl like it’s a bad thing. Jester frowns, suddenly less delighted.

“You look very pretty,” she says, because she doesn’t want for Beau to misunderstand, “but you don’t have to wear a dress if you don’t want to, you know?”

Beau frowns at her like she’s speaking Deep Speech, except that Beau understands Deep Speech, except that maybe she doesn’t anymore, technically?

“I’m a _girl,”_ she repeats herself, like Jester had misheard her the first time and is also blind. “Girls have to wear dresses and stay in doors and just do _boring_ stuff all day.”

“No!” she says. “That’s wrong.”

“It’s not!” Beau says angrily. “Mom and dad and my nanny said so!”

“Well,” Jester says decisively. “They’re all lying to you then.”

Beau stares at her and gapes.

“I mean sure yes I am wearing a dress right now,” she goes on. “But that is just because I personally really like dresses. None of my other lady friends wear dresses, like Yasha or Nott or-- well. Pants are very practical and well liked is what I am saying, I guess. You can wear them if you want to! I bet that you would look pretty good in pants too.”

Beau flushes, clutches her hands in her skirts like they’re about to be ripped off of her, or like she wants to do it herself. Her eyes are bright. Jester can’t tell if she’s angry or something else. Well, Beau likes to be a bit angry with most of her emotions.

“And I do lots of fun stuff outdoors! I don’t even _own_ a house. Like, yesterday I killed a nasty vampire who wasn’t even sexy or romantic, he was just _mean_ so it was okay. I set him right on fire! And the day before you-- me and one of my friends, we played a super funny prank on a temple.” She breaks out into snickers at the memory. “We set a _bull_ loose inside it.”

There’s an incredulous smile tugging at the edge of Beau’s lips, a light in her eyes like she wants to believe her. “You didn’t.”

“I did! Look, I drew some sketches of it this morning.” And she digs her sketchbook out of her pink backpack and shows her.

“Who’s that?” Beau points at the drawing of herself slapping the bull on the behind to make it go crazy inside the temple.

“My friend… _Tracy.”_

Beau looks down at her own wolfishly smiling face intently. “I… like her hair.”

“It’s good hair,” Jester agrees. Beau is absentmindedly touching her own long, soft hair now, still not looking away. Hair like that must have taken her a really long time to save up. It must be heavy. It must take a long time to brush. To wash. To dry. To tie up into elaborate pretty braids. It must get in her face a lot. It must get stuck in branches if she tries to climb up trees.

Long hair is really, very not much fun unless you really want it.

“I think you’d look good with hair like that,” she says. Beau looks up at her, eyes wide.

“Really?”

“Really,” she says. “You would look so _cool_ and _tough_ and _handsome--”_

Beau is going beet red, is twisting her hands harder and harder in her skirts like she doesn’t know what to do with extremely targeted compliments. “Girls aren’t supposed to be--”

“Supposed is boring,” Jester says, looks her in the eyes so she knows she’s serious. “You don’t have to do supposed, Beau. You can be a girl and wear pants and kick ass in the outdoors and get drunk and go on adventures and kiss other girls and it will be _so fun and awesome.”_

She looks floored for a long moment. And then, “Wait, how do you know my name? Who are you? How did I get here? And how do you know I want to kiss other--!?”

There’s a poof of purple smoke, and Jester hacks and coughs from how close it is.

“... The fuck?” an older, deeper, gruffer voice says. Still, however, noticeably a woman’s voice.

“Welcome back!” she cheers, throws her arms around her friend. “Beau, we have to get _all_ of this powder. I want to see how cute Fjord was when he was eight! No, Caleb! No, Nott! No, wait, _Yasha--”_

“What?”

She grins, mischievous but a in a very cute way, she’s sure. “Let’s do things we’re not supposed to, Beau.”


End file.
